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Delta Flight Attendant: We're Here To Save Your A-- Not Kiss It

Our aircraft lost pressurization after leaving Minneapolis. The oxygen masks appeared automatically, just like you are told in the safety briefing before every flight.

(Written today from 35,000 feet aboard Delta flight 1496)

A few days ago I was speaking with one of my good friends who is a senior Delta flight attendant with more than thirty years of experience with the airline. I was complaining about the failure of Delta to accommodate first class passengers for meals because they are always out of salads. Of course I suppose I should not complain, given the fact that I am always upgraded as a Diamond million-miler, but nonetheless neither I nor many fellow passengers like to eat the sandwiches that are offered for lunch, rather than the delicious salads!

She responded to my complaints with a simple, somewhat acerbic but nonetheless true statement: “We are not here to kiss your ass, but to save it!”

If there is an emergency, I understood this to be true but we all take airline safety for granted because of the incredible safety record in flying. We rarely think about the real mission of flight attendants, but that is the real reason they are there; to protect us first.

I was flying from Minneapolis to New York this morning in an MD88 aircraft. We were about thirty minutes into a two hour flight. The flight attendants were just asking everyone what they wanted for lunch when the cabin heat came up all of a sudden, the plane began descending and oxygen masks dropped from their compartments. About two minutes later, the pilot announced that we had lost pressurization and could not continue on to New York. We would return to Minneapolis.

Each row has its own oxygen system. The canisters get very hot, so passengers are warned not to touch them. It is a very clever design which will support flight for several hours, if necessary.

Aircraft must be pressurized because of the lack of oxygen above 10,000 feet.

I believe this is the first time in my fifty years of flying that this has happened, so I was more interested in the technical aspects rather than safety concern. I have had other on-board mechanical issues including the loss of an engine over England (in a small two engine plane) and an aborted takeoff which was a bit tense, but nothing life-threatening. I was also supposed to fly on UAL 232 from Portland to Chicago the day it crashed in Sioux City doing a cartwheel down the runway engulfed in flames. Thankfully, I was delayed and so took the flight the next day.

But it does give one pause to consider that airplanes are incredibly complex and surrounded by highly flammable fuel. When one considers that the typical jet engine contains more than 50,000 parts, it is truly a miracle that everything usually works correctly and millions of passengers get to where they want to go without incident.

I remembered what my Delta friend told me this morning, and while we take airline safety for granted, one instantly understand that you are (in this case) more than 30,000 feet above the ground in a modified rocket. If things go wrong, it is the crew and often some luck that will get you down safely.

The oxygen mask has three butterfly valves that respond to air pressure when you breathe in and out. This way, oxygen comes into the mask but does not escape. When you exhale, the two other valves pass your breath through the outlets.

True to form, I got to examine the oxygen delivery system and thought that it might be of interest to my readers. We rarely see the inner-workings of the actual mechanism. The release of the masks is triggered by a loss of pressurization, or manually by the flight crew. There is actually an electrical switch that links to a latch in the swing-open door. In the case this morning, the Captain announced that he was not able to reduce altitude quickly enough for the automatic system to avoid triggering. So, the entire aircraft looked like a high-tech ICU ward for about thirty minutes until we were below 10,000 feet.

The crew on flight 2096 donned their oxygen canisters and was constantly checking on passengers to be certain they were ok. There was no meal service which, of course was disappointing, but on my second flight to New York a couple of hours later, I did get my salad, but it was macaroni and chicken, not Caesar.

I do not like macaroni, but what can I say. Delta got me to New York, delayed, but safe. Maybe next time they could have enough meal choices to make everyone happy!

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Oh one more reason why I am glad I retired from my F/A job. I wonder if the author of this piece, when he walks into a restaurant, will be disappointed when he exits if the restaurant hasn’t moved from Minneapolis to New York City? He probably would not be disappointed if a restaurant had tablecloths which were the wrong color and he wants those ridiculous meals that come from an airline catering kitchen. Honestly the main reason people fly is to get a meal. Even in this day and age passengers still think flight attendants have some kind of magic wand to come up with whatever they want at any given moment.

On behalf of Delta, I apologize for that flight attendant. These divas forget they are in a service industry and truth be told they are probably not any better at saving your a– than they are with their people skills.

Why would you apologize? She is correct. The “service” part of the job is just to make you comfortable. At one time the “flight attendants” had to be registered nurses if a medical problem occurred. Even now they have to be qualified on CPR and how to use the defibrillator. I can do without food for a day, but I would look to them in the case of an “in-flight” emergency.

Hear Hear!!!! A flight attendant is not a waitress or nanny. They should be friendly and professional, but so should the passengers. Passengers are paying for a service (to get from point A to point B safely and in a timely manner) but they are also in a place of business; they should dress and behave as if they know this. It’s difficult to take a complaint seriously when it’s coming from a grown man in a tank top in flip flops. Like all henny penny claims of the end of civility, we need to ask ourselves; “what have I done for civility lately?” http://heresheisboys.com/category/travel/

To the contrary, when not giving a safety demonstration or in the middle of an air emergency, a flight attendant IS a waiter/waitress. That’s what customers of this service industry pay for; that’s what the airline offers. They’re not called “attendants” formerly “stewards/stewardesses” for nothing.

As an airline pilot (of another airline), I can’t tell you how annoyed I am to read your characterization that, “it is the crew and often SOME LUCK,” that gets you on the ground safely. Perhaps when you check into a hospital with a disease or ailment, and you are fortunate to walk out healthy some days later, that is ‘luck.’ Or if you are falsely accused of a crime, have to go to trial, and are eventually acquitted, perhaps that is luck. Certainly your odds of a positive outcome in these events is FAR from 100 percent, so maybe it’s fair to ascribe a positive outcome in these cases to good fortune.

On the other hand, in the case of an aircraft emergency, which occurs a few dozen times a day (in U.S. airliners) in one form or another over the span of thousands of flights a day, the result is nearly UNIVERSALLY, a positive outcome, with all passengers returned to the ground safely. Professional pilots train for years before flying large jets, and we continue training regularly in simulators and self-study so that when its your jet, with you or your family aboard, you will be returned safely to the ground. There are literally billions of passenger miles flown between those rare fatalities. It has nothing to do with chance or luck.

And lest I not offer credit where it is due, aircraft mechanical failure has become far more rare due to the work of talented engineers, and highly professional maintanence personnel, who have learned to correct most problems long before they become a hazard. It’s not luck that permits those 50,000 parts of a jet engine, moving under tons of centrifugal force, to travel a million miles before overhaul.

One more thing: A flight attendant’s Primary job is to ensure safety. But they also exist to ensure a positive passenger experience, which includes good customer service. Similarly, it is a pilot’s primary job to go from point a to point b safely, but we are also paid to maximize passenger comfort, in issues from finding a non-turbulent altitude to getting to the destination in time to make a connection to coordinating for special services upon landing. When crew members fail to perform these secondary obligations, institutionally, which is to say regularly from many crew members of the same airline, consider pointing a finger at the company’s leadership. And anyone looking for ‘a—kissing,’ should think about paying extra, because that is not in any crew-member’s list of responsibilities that I’m aware of.

Dear Captain: I really appreciate your extensive comment and I could not agree with you more. You are precisely correct: the problem rests squarely with management at Delta and other airlines. In my view many airlines have turned into a “greed machine,” and this definitely includes Delta. That means cutting corners, bag fees, and subjecting passengers to on-board advertising, just to name a few examples. I have no issue with the employees of Delta, especially those that came from Northwest. Virtually Delta every employee I speak with while on-board is complaining about management and their policies. Evidently their president only has time to produce videos to tell passengers just how great he and his airline are doing but are not addressing real concerns.

As to safety, I also agree that is the first responsibility of cabin crew. Everyone understands that. I too have visited with a number of pilots, and while airline safety has a great record, things do go wrong, and what I wrote I think is true; there is some luck involved, because you can have cascading failures that vastly complicate your mission. That is all I was trying to say. Aircraft and flight is incredibly complex, so everyting has to work. Sometimes luck does play a critical role, especially involving weather.

Just keep us safe and get us to where we are going. At the end of the day, nothing else matters.